Article Tools

The June 14 gun buyback’s success exceeded all expectations with 239 firearms exchanged for Vons gift cards or $100 in cash. Would these guns have been crime guns? We know that these particular weapons will not be used in a homicide, suicide, or accidental shooting; therefore, our community is that much safer.

The Coalition Against Gun Violence thanks Mayor Helene Schneider for her consistent support of CAGV and gun violence prevention. Thanks to Police Chief Cam Sanchez for believing a gun buyback in Santa Barbara would work. We are especially appreciative to Sergeant Riley Harwood and his team of officers and young cadets. You had to be there to see the perfect organization and professionalism of these officers.

One of CAGV’s goals was to demonstrate to the community through our collaboration with the police department that our officers are enthusiastic about working to prevent crime. They voiced their appreciation about being involved in the buyback.

We thank Congressmember Lois Capps and State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson for taking the time from their busy schedules to come to the buyback, speak with all of us, and be just as amazed when the officers explained details regarding the six assault weapons and two lethal semi-automatic TEC-9 handguns that were also turned in.

Last, the buyback could never have happened without the donations of many people, partner organizations, and local businesses, including gunbygun.org, a crowdfunding website.

This was a team effort. As Vince Lombardi once said, “The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined efforts of each individual.” Our community is that organization.

Comments

"One of CAGV’s goals was to demonstrate to the community through our collaboration with the police department that our officers are enthusiastic about working to prevent crime."And here I thought that most people were vigorously in favor of crime in order to support job security for peace officers. Thanks for setting the record straight!Along with getting that black powder rifle off of the streets, I fell safer already...

…I submit that, rather than "even if only one child is saved," these two scenarios are a more likely result of this gun buyback:

(1) A criminal turns in a non-functioning firearm, and uses the $100 he saves on food as the final $100 his gun fund needed to get a new functioning firearm which he or she uses to commit a mass shooting (in a "gun free" [i.e. guaranteed 100% defenseless victims] zone, of course).

(2) A US military veteran, well-trained in the use of firearms, who owns a handgun for personal and home safety, because he is living in poverty (thanks to how this country treats its veterans), turns in his handgun for $100 worth of food. A month later, he is killed in a break-in by two meth-heads that he might easily have successfully defended himself against.

I find it hard to believe that Capps is still showing her face in public.

These are the guns she should be concerned about, those she voted [ https://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote... ] for, currently being used by vicious eastern European Nazis to commit genocide against the civilian populations of southeast Ukraine:

Glad to hear Lois Capps took the time out of her busy schedule in denying Moura was on the clock to come to this event. So some guns were turned in, a few were very nice collector's pieces that belong in a museum...is this was Indiana Jones felt every time a government took away a beautiful piece of history?

This is really some great writing here: " just as amazed when the officers explained details regarding the six assault weapons and two lethal semi-automatic TEC-9 handguns that were also turned in." First of all, "assault weapon" is a term used to scare ignorant people and it's disgusting to see it working. Secondly, "lethal" guns.... knives are lethal, cars are lethal, fists are lethal....enough with the scare tactics!

'I find it hard to believe that Capps is still showing her face in public.'???? I find anything JT posts hard to believe. Glad BG805 took time out of it's busy day to comment about a steaming pile of BS. Thanks for submitting.

One of the most fundamental deceptions perpetrated by the citizen disarmament movement is to *completely ignore* defensive gun use statistics, which clearly indicate that the good from firearms in the hands of 100 million law-abiding and responsible US citizens outweighs the harm by a ratio of *from 27 - 80 to 1*.

"According to the National Self Defense Survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the rate of defensive gun uses can be projected nationwide to approximately 2.5 million per year — one defensive gun use every 13 seconds."

SOURCE: The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law

I respectfully suggest that you spend less than 60 seconds here, even if just to read the *article titles* in the resources sections that begin about 3/5 down the page:

Then there's the fact that even though guns have always been easily available in the U.S. and even though we have more gun laws than we did in years past we hear more and more about schoolyard shootings. The capability was available at any time in the past for this to have happened, but didn't start spiking until about 15 years ago.

ABC News (!) versus the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy? Seriously?

I'll go with the latter (about 1/2 way down the page here: http://americangunfacts.com/), as well as just a few of the other sources from the page I referred lawdy to:

• the US Department of Justice• the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC)• the Pew Research Center• The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law

lawdy, just as the citizen disarmament movement does, apparently has chosen to ignore my primary point that guns are life-saving rather than harmful at a ratio of from 27-80 to 1.

Regarding, in general, NYTWaPoNPRHuffPostMSNBCCNNABCCBSPBS , only a decreasing minority of the US population is still unaware that 90% of the US corporate media is now controlled by just six transnational corporations [ http://ftmdaily.com/global-issues/cor... ], corporations that earn many millions in advertising dollars from the transnational pharmaceutical corporations, up to 80% of which, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, are criminal organizations [ http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/... ] and that manufacture the real cause (i.e. not simply the tools used) of the tragic and emotional mass shootings, as well as many other gun crimes.

"Forensic psychiatrist: 'We've had 20 years of mass murders, throughout which I have told CNN and other mass media: If you don't want to propagate more mass murders, don't start the story with sirens blaring…don't have photographs of the killer…don't make this 24/7 coverage…DO localize this story to the affected community, and make it as boring as possible in every other market — because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week.' "

Unfortunately, "if it bleeds, it leads." With combined annual profits of $35.9 billion — more than the profits for all the remaining 490 Fortune 500 businesses — the top ten transnational pharmaceutical corporations provide many millions of dollars of advertising revenue to the corporate media.

To maximize this revenue, the corporate media manipulates and lies about statistics, and also, like the citizen disarmament movement, *completely ignores defensive gun use statistics*, as well as nearly all such stories (over 90% of which don't bleed, so they don't lead), and hypes *all gun crimes*, particularly mass shootings, 24/7, deliberately encouraging copycat tragedies, so as to vacuum up even more advertising revenue, as they rattle on incessantly, glorifying the shooter while demonizing the inanimate objects chosen as the weapons, but ignoring the actual cause of many of these tragedies — the extremely dangerous neurotoxins peddled by its pharmaceutical corporate sponsors.

Toni successfully expanded her own hubris and ego making her hit record highs of feeling good about herself without doing a single iota of anything meaningful to reduce gun violence or criminal behavior!!

…that, on average, with one defensive gun use every 13 seconds (over 90% without firing a shot — and thus, not incidentally, not newsworthy — doesn't bleed, so doesn't lead — to ABC News and whatever other corporations you get your views of the world from), that in those 18,300 seconds on average 1407 people protected themselves from a gun-wielding criminal.

That's 70 times as many as the 20 gun deaths from all sources — homicide, suicide, accidents.

So, enlighten us: how does this justify a public relations stunt that is widely acknowledged as accomplishing nothing — or worse: providing criminals with funds for better guns, and demonizing responsible citizens, encouraging them to give up a legitimate means for personal and home protection.

That study is based on statistics from 20-30 years ago when the crime rate was 30% to 40% higher (some of it collected from 1981, one of the worst years in terms of crime). And it's highly debatable that the methodology used to conduct the survey produced accurate results, as the survey merely asked gun owners if they had ever used a gun defensively without firing and how many times, and then extrapolated the data from there. In other words, the data collected was totally unverifiable.

A good debunking of those statistics here (by David Frum, of all people, who is hardly a liberal):

I had come across reference to that, but it was not from what I considered a credible source, and I have been on the lookout for a second source.

Setting aside the non-utility of gun buybacks and the hoplophobic "all guns are evil — except in the hands of the authorities, elite politicians, and megalomaniac oligarchs, of course," my information still indicates a 27-80 to 1 ratio of defensive gun use to fatal gun crimes, and mass shooting (not as defined by Bloomberg! [ http://www.calgunlaws.com/us-fight-ov... ] fatalities of about 100 per year since the 1980s and falling.

I'd be interested in seeing additional confirmation and/or rebuttal of these statistics from credible sources (i.e. certainly not Bloomberg or any of his astroturf groups [ https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/S... ] ).

So much me me me me. This is not about responsible gun owners. This is about responsible people who feel that it is better to rid themselves of a gun rather than have it end up in the hands of the irresponsible or maybe they have been irresponsible with it or see the possibility of it being used irresponsible in their possession. Good for them that they got rid of it and good for us that they had the opportunity to do so. If you are threatened by a gun buy back, draw the curtains, peep out the cracks, and watch out for 'them' because 'they' are coming.... soon.....tomorrow.....maybe never.

Consider also the oh-so-dramatic "we'll take all these evil guns and melt them down." This destruction nonsense, in addition to the needless negative impact on the environment (not just the process, but destroying useful life-saving tools, the manufacturing of which impacted the environment), contributes to the widely-held position that gun buybacks are nothing but public relations stunts and photo opportunities for the sponsors.

If the citizen disarmament people were genuine, they'd initiate an education campaign suggesting that those law-abiding citizens who have firearms in their homes that are not serving any useful purpose, and wont ever serve any useful purpose — for them, simply sell them to a local Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) dealer (i.e. their nearest gun shop). But this wouldn't provide nearly as much PR (from those ignorant of these issues) for the sponsoring organization.

Selling to a local FFL would also preclude criminals taking advantage of these stunts to turn in non-functioning firearms in order to generate cash for buying a functioning weapon. In fact, there have been credible suggestions that these stunts are responsible for break-ins — criminals stealing guns from law-abiding homeowners to turn in at these events.

I noted a few stories back that I would never give up my firearm unless the Police could meet the Collectors price $1890.00, for a Federal Government Law Enforcement Duty Pistol with Papers to prove its worth, I still stand by that!